by Rachel Grant
She threaded her fingers through his hair and captured his mouth with hers. She felt the tension in his body, his fear she would leave. She deepened her kiss, and he melted against her, relief spreading from his body to hers.
She tightened her fingers, pulled his hair. “No more questions. One more strike and you’re out—out of the inning, out of the game.”
His sexy smile was her undoing. “Shortcake, I’m about to hit it out of the park.”
For her, all that mattered was tonight she wouldn’t be alone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
LEE WOKE LONG BEFORE ERICA did. He watched her sleep and breathed in her scent. Sex, shampoo, and Erica’s own personal essence. He was addicted to the fragrance. Addicted to her.
He wasn’t proud of the way he’d questioned her, of the anger he’d shown when she’d lied to him. He was amazed she’d made love with him afterward. He knew she was lonely and hurt, and he was more than a little appalled with himself for taking advantage of her vulnerabilities to convince her to stay.
He’d done it because he’d been terrified she would leave, hating him as much as he hated himself for manipulating her.
But she’d stayed, and they’d made love until they were both sated and exhausted. And then, because he couldn’t get enough of her, he’d made love to her again in the shower. Hot water poured down his back, she panted his name, and he exploded inside her.
His attempt at using sex to control her had backfired. She owned him now.
Now, hours before dawn, he was hard again and couldn’t sleep. Her hair had dried from their midnight shower, and the dark strands haloed around her head and covered both their pillows, enveloping him in the scent of the shampoo he’d lathered into the thick, silky strands. He’d developed a Pavlovian reaction to hairpins and knew it was fueled by her refusal to wear her hair down. He suspected for the rest of his life the mere glimpse of a bobby pin would give him a hard-on.
He climbed out of bed, careful not to disturb her. Time to check in with JT. After she woke, he wouldn’t have a second alone. Not if he could help it, anyway.
He left the master suite, cell phone in hand. In the guest bathroom, he turned on the tap, sat on the closed toilet, and placed the call.
“This better be good.” JT sounded half-asleep and three-quarters grouchy. Good.
“The artifacts Riversong procured for the Aztec Room were stolen from the shipwreck Novak’s been excavating.”
JT cursed, then said, “Cultural goods. No way would the Mexican government let Novak keep those.” Unlike Joe, JT rarely showed his Indian heritage, but in moments like this, Lee was reminded his stepbrother had a deeper knowledge of cultural issues. “Can you prove this?”
“I think Erica can.”
“Find out. Fast. You got this from Erica? You finally got into her pants?”
He bristled but answered, “Yes.”
“Good work.” JT let out a low whistle. “She thinks you’re young, immature, and spoiled but still slept with you. You’re a regular James Bond.”
“Shut the fuck up, JT.”
He laughed. “Have all the fun you want with her, but don’t let your feelings screw up the investigation. You need to find out about the artifacts and how Novak is involved with the Iraq smuggling.”
“First I need to take Erica shopping; she needs a dress for Saturday night. By the way—as punishment for the hell I went through lying to Joe and Erica at the same time, you’re paying for the dress. Designer, per Joe’s orders. She’s going as both my date and employee-of-the-month.”
JT was silent. Finally he said, “Shrewd of Dad, but it could backfire. Too bad we can’t tell him what she’s involved in.”
“She’s innocent. She was caught in a bad situation by Novak and walked. She lost everything because she worked for him and got nothing in return.”
“You may have been taken in by a sexy con.”
“I’m a lowly intern. If she’s a con artist, she’d be after you.”
“At least I wouldn’t let my emotions get involved.”
“She worked for Novak, but she’s not a part of the Iraq smuggling.”
“I hope you’re right. Listen, I figured it was time to share real info with the feds and spoke with an agent I know. Because Matt Weber was killed in Iraq, his murder is out of the FBI’s jurisdiction, but the agent said they’d be ready to dive in once the artifacts reach American soil. He agreed with your buddy Curt—because I authorized your hacking into the Talon & Drake network, you don’t need a warrant, but they would, so he’s content to hang back and let you do your job. Legally, we’re fine as long as the Feds don’t get wind of the cell phone hacking you’ve been doing.”
“What cell phone hacking?” Lee said innocently. But the cell phones were the least of it. He could go to jail for the hacking he’d done to gather information on Erica, Drake, Novak, and Riversong. At the very least, he’d lose his business license. Joe had no idea the lengths they were going to protect him.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” JT paused. “The feds will search SARAC when it arrives. Focus on Novak. See if you can get into his computer. If the guy is selling Aztec artifacts, he’d have no qualms selling Iraqi ones.”
“I know.”
“We need to nail this sonofabitch to the wall,” JT said.
“I think Erica’s got proof against Novak.”
“Then convince her to hand it over.”
“Her proof could implicate Riversong.”
JT swore. “Dad won’t like that.”
Lee wondered if JT was considering a cover-up. The thought made him ill. “If Riversong knowingly bought stolen goods, he’s going down along with Drake and Novak.”
“Dad will never turn his back on the man who saved his life when he was thirteen years old,” JT said and hung up.
Lee returned to his bedroom. He crawled into bed, pulled Erica into his arms without waking her, and asked himself why he was risking jail and his career and lying to Erica. Was he trying to find out who’d murdered Matt Weber? Was he trying to protect Joe and the campaign?
His answer neither surprised nor pleased him. Twenty years after the divorce that hurt the most and fifteen years after being the screwup Joe had to rescue time and again, Lee was still trying to prove himself.
If Erica could prove Riversong had purchased stolen goods, Lee would have to choose between a man he’d known and worshiped most of his life and the woman who’d stolen his heart.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
ERICA CAME AWAKE FROM a deep sleep with the suddenness of swimming and surfacing for air. She hadn’t slept that deeply in over a year. The man sleeping next to her was the reason she’d been able to let her guard down.
God. What a night.
He looked heart-skippingly sexy. His hair, damp when they’d gone to sleep, stuck out at odd angles, he needed to shave, and his muscular torso was in full view.
Twelve hours ago, he’d ripped her heart out.
Jake had believed she was his for no other reason than he wanted her. He’d taken kisses from her, but her kisses, her body, those were for her to give. Not for Jake to take. Not even for Lee to take.
Lee might believe he made the first move that night at the FDR Memorial, but she’d known exactly what she was doing as she stood on that rock. She’d wanted him to kiss her. In that moment, she’d reclaimed a piece of herself that Jake had tried to steal. Her body. Her choice. Afterward, she’d scanned the crowd, looking for Jake, and wondered what the price of reclaiming herself would be.
Last night, she’d slept with Lee because she wanted to. She’d wanted him. Again, her body, her choice. He’d taken nothing from her she hadn’t wanted to give. Not even the story of her mother or the incomplete truth she’d told him about Jake. And afterward, she’d made the choice to stay. She’d wanted his tenderness, wanted his passion.
Did she regret sleeping with him? No.
Did she want to stick around and face him this morning? No.
<
br /> She quietly slid to the edge of the bed. He caught her wrist, his reflexes surprisingly sharp for someone who’d appeared sound asleep. He pulled her back against him and rose on an elbow, a sleepy, sexy smile on his handsome face. “Where are you sneaking off to?”
“We’re”—her voice cracked and she cleared her throat—“late for work.”
He dropped kisses along her brow. “We’re not going to work today.”
“I can’t take a day off.”
He nibbled on her ear, and she wondered why she’d considered escaping. Last night, they’d had mind-blowing sex—repeatedly. She wouldn’t mind experiencing that again.
He trailed his lips along her collarbone. “After everything that’s happened, you need a mental-health day.” His mouth found hers, and he kissed her soundly. “We’re going dress shopping.” He slid down and sucked her nipple into his mouth.
Oh Lord. She caught her breath. What were they talking about? Oh yeah. “You want to spend a girly day with me, shopping?” She tried to focus. “Should we get our hair done too?”
“No scissors are getting anywhere near your hair.” He slid his fingers through the tangled mass.
She closed her eyes as he massaged her scalp.
“And we’re going to buy you lots of sexy underwear.” He pushed her onto her back and kissed her neck and breasts as he worked his way lower and lower. “Unless, of course, you want to go commando. That’d be fine with me.” He traced her belly button with his tongue, then continued south.
She discovered she lacked the will to get up.
“Say you’ll play hooky with me today.” He reached the juncture of her thighs. His tongue found her clitoris, and he demonstrated exactly how much he’d learned about her body during their marathon sex night.
“Yes,” she gasped.
“Yes, you’ll play hooky with me? Or yes, as in, ‘I like that, don’t stop’?”
“Don’t stop.” She arched her back as he did that thing that made her stretch tighter than a violin string, already on the brink of orgasm.
He stopped.
“Okay! Okay! I’ll take the day off.” Her choice.
He slid his tongue across her clit, delivering the sweet sensation she needed more than air. She came to a shuddering climax, but before she finished coming, he entered her, and the feel of his thick length prolonged her orgasm, stretching it out until she thought she’d come apart with the intensity. He arched his back and let out a low, guttural sound as he came, and she loved the feeling of him losing control of his strong, powerful body inside her.
Afterward, she snuggled against him. “Damn, you’re persuasive,” she said.
“I was captain of the debate team in college.”
“Was? Don’t tell me, you got kicked off the team for seducing the professor.”
He laughed. “No, he was—is—a tiny old man with a Napoleon complex.”
“So why aren’t you captain any longer?”
“I don’t have time for it.”
She rose up on an elbow and traced circles on his perfect chest with her fingertip. She was his supervisor but felt no more in control of her reaction to him than she did any other facet of her life. She knew so little about him. “Tell me what you do at school. What keeps you too busy for debate? Do you have a job?” She stopped and pulled her hand away as a sudden thought chilled her. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
He caught her hand, entwining her fingers through his. “No. I don’t have a girlfriend. But I have someone in mind for the position.” He brought her fingers to his lips and kissed them one by one.
“Forget it.”
Hurt crossed his face. “Why?”
“In a few weeks, you’ll return to school. We live in different worlds and are in different places in our lives.” I’m afraid to trust you.
“So? I’m crazy about you.”
“This is just sex.” It has to be. I can’t handle a broken heart on top of everything else.
He sat up and looked down at her. “Don’t give me that bull. If this was just sex, I’d have been finished after the first orgasm.”
He towered over her, so she sat up. “College and long-distance relationships don’t work.”
“I’m not a freshman finally tasting freedom, and you certainly aren’t a high school girl waiting for her college boy. I’m a man who knows what I want. And I want you.”
“A man who needs to complete an internship so his parents will pay for school.”
He stiffened and started to speak, then stopped. Finally, he said, “You can’t get beyond that, can you? I’m sorry your mom was a shit. But I’m not going to apologize for the fact that my parents help me out with school.”
Feeling struck, she climbed out of bed and headed toward the bathroom.
He followed and caught her around the waist, pulling her back against his naked body. “I’m sorry, Erica. I was out of line.”
“No,” she murmured. “You’re very astute. You should change your major to psychology.” She tried to pull away. “I’m going to take a shower.”
“Don’t do this. Don’t build a wall between us.”
She faced him. “I have to, Lee. In a few weeks, you’ll be gone. Until then, there’s nothing more between us than sex.”
“You mean really great sex.”
She let out a short, painful laugh. “Spectacular sex. But that’s all this is. Hell, my biological clock will be going off soon. What would you do then?”
“Get rid of the condoms.”
She couldn’t give in to the pleasure his words caused. “Please. You’re twenty-five and haven’t yet started a career or your adult life. You don’t want to be saddled with an older woman longing for babies while you take your first low-level, soul-sucking job.”
He laughed. “You should be a recruiter for the business world. And don’t tell me what I do or don’t want. I know my own mind, and dammit, I’m falling in love with you.”
Fear arced through her, and she pushed him away. “You can’t be.”
“There you go again, telling me what I want, how I feel. You’re stubborn, hostile, secretive. Generally, a pain in the ass. But still, I’m madly, crazily falling for you.”
She tried to ignore the flutter in her chest, the aching need for his words to be true. “As far as romantic declarations go, you could have done better.”
“If I’d complimented you, you’d just argue and tell me how I feel. But notice you aren’t arguing after hearing your faults. Now get over here and kiss me like a woman who’s just been told the man of her dreams is falling in love with her.”
He offered her what she wanted most, what she feared most. If she slipped and said the words back to him, then the pain and humiliation when he left would be so much worse.
When she didn’t move, he took her hand and pulled until her palm rested against his chest. She could feel the even beating of his heart. “See. Just like I said. Stubborn.” His voice dropped lower. “I’m only asking for today. Tomorrow we can negotiate all over again.”
“Today. That’s all you want?”
“I want a hell of a lot more. But I’ll take today.”
She was in way over her head, but later, when he was long gone and her life resumed its lonely course, she’d have the memories of today to sustain her.
Her choice. “You can have today.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
DRESS SHOPPING WAS SHEER torture for Lee. Erica tried on sexy dress after sexy dress, and he was forced to behave in front of serious saleswomen hawking overpriced gowns.
She’d turned white when she saw the price tag of the first dress he wanted her to try on. She hissed at him when the saleslady was out of earshot. “This costs more than my rent. No way are we spending that much on a dress.”
“It’s not your money. It’s Talon & Drake’s.”
“It’s obscene. If we’re going to waste money I’d rather eat steak.”
“I’ll buy you steak, but you’re still trying o
n the dress.” He’d pushed her toward the dressing room, but the gown wasn’t right for her. Neither was the next one, or the next. Each time she stepped out of the dressing room wearing a different megapriced designer gown, his reaction was instantaneous. No. She needed to look like a starlet on Oscar night.
Saturday night she would stand by his side and be the recipient of a whirlwind of attention from the press, and he would make it blatantly clear she was his. When his relationship to Joe and his new position at the Bethesda office was announced, she’d never have to fear Novak again. Except she’d be devastated by his lies.
Erica was determined to try on dull dresses guaranteed to grant anonymity. He took yet another gown from her hands and hung it on the rack. “Shortcake, you have terrible taste.”
“I do not. I have practical taste.”
“Same thing. You need a dress that’s decadent, frothy. Gorgeous. Like you.”
“I am not frothy.”
He pulled her to him, and his lips hovered over hers as he murmured, “I was referring to the gorgeous part, but there were times last night when you were very frothy.” He kissed her, a deep, leisurely exploration. She grasped the front of his shirt, and damn if she wasn’t turning frothy right there in the upscale boutique.
He reluctantly broke the kiss. “We need a break. Let’s get lunch.”
He took her to a bistro, and they sat outside in the sultry summer heat. Erica ordered a steak sandwich, and the look of ecstasy on her face as she took her first bite caused a rush of feelings he didn’t want to face.
Damn, but this was a rotten situation. He’d lied to her from the first moment they met, and come Saturday night, she would hate him. But he couldn’t stop the coming storm by confessing now. She hadn’t explained what happened with Novak or why she’d really warned Joe about stolen Aztec artifacts. What if she still worked for the treasure hunter? Fear of Novak didn’t exonerate her; it just meant she wasn’t a fool.
